FEATURE
rocky’ s timeless success
Born as a theatre production nearly 50 years ago, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has survived through generations, and its potent mix of sex and spectacle still carries an important message for today’ s audiences. From gender politics to sexual freedom, progressive thinkers owe much to Rocky, Frank, Brad, and Janet.
The opening line sets the tone. The narrator begins:“ I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.”
The story starts with sweethearts Brad Majors( Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss( Susan Sarandon), stuck with a flat tire during a storm. They discover Dr Frank-N- Furter’ s( Tim Curry) mansion, a transvestite scientist. Through elaborate dances and rock songs, the protagonists will meet a house full of wild characters, including a biker, a creepy butler, and a mysterious muscular man named Rocky.
When the movie was released, it achieved tremendous success at the Rialto Theatre in London, and the UA Westwood in Los Angeles. This turned out to be the exception, not the rule, as the movie was not doing well elsewhere.
After being withdrawn from its eight opening cities due to very small audiences, it was relaunched with midnight screenings in a few selected locations, where a ritual began. People would shout responses to the characters’ statements on the screen. What was created from this is one of the reasons why The Rocky Horror Picture Show is still remembered and staged after five decades.
This is a prime example of a low-budget / b-movie turned into an absolute cult, filling theatres all over the world with costumed fanatics ready to view the sexy adventures of Frank-N-Furter for the hundredth time.
The movie is a delightful post-modern pastiche, unafraid to mix Grant Wood’ s painting American Gothic with King Kong. The references are vast: 1950s Rock n’ Roll death( symbolised by the biker Eddie), Frankenstein’ s myth, 1920s stardom, Nietzsche’ s superman and classic horror imagery. The ending tribute to old Hollywood is moving and memorable.
Probably the most sensual and sassy musical of all, its characters are bizarre, creepy, and nonetheless destined to remain in the collective imagination. The Rocky Horror Picture Show blends a superb soundtrack with hilarious scenes and roaring choreographs.
Unforgettable moments are the Time Warp sequence and Frank-N-Furter making his entrance on killer heels, accompanied by the song Sweet Transvestite.
The role was perfect for Tim Curry, an irreplaceable Frank, while Richard O’ Brien, the mind behind the story, played the grotesque butler Riff-Raff.
All of this combined can seem a little bit confusing, but it works nonetheless – now more than ever in contemporary society. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a scream of sexual jubilation, but first of all, it is an invitation to live happily and freely, with love acting as a universal glue. It is thus easy to see how this story helped to trigger a freedom for the search of sexual identity – and its constant redefining – following the revolution at the beginning of the 70s’.
On the contrary, it is harder to spot the subtle but painful depiction of loneliness, masked by Frank’ s exuberance. He has built himself the perfect human-like form to serve as his sexual plaything, because he is shown to be incapable of loving a real person.
It was most definitely avant-garde and risky to put all of these elements into a 1973 musical, despite the changes in societal values regarding homosexuality, pornography and other sexualities and gender identities that had been taboo in the past.
Therefore, when Richard O’ Brien wrote“ Don’ t dream it, be it”, he was projecting into the future a world that is now our own, even if“ some insects, called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space... and meaning”( The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975) are still crawling on the face of the planet some 50 years later.
Chiara Cianci
Image: Creaative Commons License
Current cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show UK Tour
14 SLEUTH ISSUE 5